


The Vampire Diaries Free-For-All Comment Ficathon

by persephone20



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-19
Updated: 2012-05-20
Packaged: 2017-11-05 15:18:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 7,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/407945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/persephone20/pseuds/persephone20
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of short fics filling out prompts and various pairings in The Vampire Diaries Free-For-All Comment Ficathon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt: Katherine/Stefan, _There is love in our bodies and it holds us together / But pulls us apart when we're holding each other / We all want something to hold in the night / We don't care if it hurts or we're holding too tight_

**We don't care who it hurts...**

Damon had always been this larger than life figure to Stefan. He could never imagine stepping a foot out of line against what his big brother wanted.

And then there was Katherine. 

Katherine sweeps into both of their lives with her winning smile and her gorgeous eyes and bouncing, brown curls framing her face. She's a hurricane, and Stefan and Damon helpless to do anything but be drawn into her wake. Stefan doesn't think there's much thought to it, not on his part, not until he realised that Damon wanted to pursue her too.

He doesn't say anything to his little brother, but Stefan knows. He considers stepping out of the running right there and then. That is the thing that haunts him during the nights with Katherine. Nights when he is sure he will walk up to her and say he is done with this, that he can't do this anymore, that he won't hurt his brother by continuing these actions. Nights when he would fall into bed with her, lulled by her spell, becoming her willing slave and walking out of her bedroom just before the sun rose.

Damon knows, of course. He doesn't say anything to his little brother, but Stefan knows Damon knew. He tries to tell himself that it is love that holds he and Katherine together, that it's a higher calling than Damon's infatuation with this effervescent young woman. He tries not to let it pull he and Katherine apart when they are holding each other, wanting to hold her in the night even as he wants to be far, far away from the temptation of her.

He feels as though they don't care who they hurt, for they hold on to each other too tightly, and he hates himself for it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: Elijah/Katherine, _I remember when you were young and afraid_

**Somewhere out of place and time**

Elijah was on top of Katherine before Katherine even knew she was being pursued. Had she still had a heart, it would have beat rapidly and betrayed her, but she had taken that heart and turned it to stone several hundred years ago. The rest had been taken care of when she'd been turned into a vampire.

Staring into her cold, almost ancient eyes, Elijah reached a hand out to cup her cheek in his palm. She didn't dare to stop him. 

"Ah, Katerina," he murmured, the sound of her old name rolling of his tongue with sweet wonder. Even this many centuries later, Katherine still felt herself swayed by the seductive cadences of this brother. Elijah seemed to be similarly effected. His voice seemed almost raw with emotion. "I remember when you were young and afraid."

There again, that spike when once her heart beat would have raced. Couldn't trust the Originals. Not any of them. Elijah was worse than his brother. He had you believing, convincing you that you could trust him, and then....

When Katherine finally gave in and attempted to race away from him, Elijah let her go. He stood alone in the forest at the edge of Mystic Falls, his arm still outstretched, fingers still curved to the shape of her cheekbone. She wouldn't be back here again, not while any members of the Original family still lingered by here. He held that pose for a moment, seeming to gaze into some memory only he could see, before eventually drawing his arm back down to his side.

"I didn't say that was a bad thing," he murmured, with something that almost sounded like regret. He turned away from where she'd stood, straightening his suit jacket, and looking nothing other than composed by the time he walked the Mystic Falls streets.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: Elena/Stefan, _Scars are tearing open along my palms and knees  
>  I guess that's what I should get for crawling back at your feet  
> _

**Crawl at your feet.**

She's silent in the car, after she gives Matt the all clear for going back to Mystic Falls. He tries, at first, to lure her back into conversation but after increasingly non-committal and monosyllabic responses, he puts his concentration on driving and leaves her to her thoughts. 

Thoughts on love. Thoughts on betrayal. She'd known that she was going to have to make a decision between the brothers but, somehow, she had thought that she'd be given more time. And that, when the time came, she would be ready for it, or at least the answer would seem clean.

The answer is jagged and raw, and doesn't feel like an answer so much as a sentence. She can't even get Matt to turn the car around because everything that she said to Damon was true. Caroline is back in Mystic Falls, and Tyler. Okay, so she and Tyler haven't always gotten along, but it's Tyler. She grew up with him. Bonnie is going to lose her mom-- _again_ , an insidious voice groans in her head--and everything's so fucked up because it isn't about her and Stefan and Damon anymore.

Maybe it never was. 

Matt glances over to her side of the truck every so often. Elena can see the movement in the corner of her eye, and so resolutely stares out of the window to avoid a renewal of attempts to catch her in conversation. Because, really, what more is there to say? Hasn't she already said enough about the two men who are currently in her life to the first boy that she ever really dated? She chose Stefan. When the chips were down, when all was said and done, her decision was Stefan, and now she's going to have to live with that. 

Doesn't mean that the emotional scars aren't opening up even as she replays the conversation with Damon in her head. The last conversation she will ever have with him. A trapped, muted, voice tries screaming in her head and Elena ruthlessly stamps it down because if she doesn't get control over it, she's going to lose it completely, and she's not certain that she can afford to lose it completely, or even a little, right now.

Matt is looking at her again for the split second as they turn the corner to go across Wickery Bridge. Elena's fingers tighten around the inside car door handle and she looks up at the last minute to see Rebekah standing there. 

"Matt!" she screams, "watch out!" 

But she knows it's too late, it's always too late on this bridge. As the truck sinks down under the water, her mind flashes back to the last time she was in a car falling off of this bridge and she knows she won't be lucky enough to escape this fate twice. 

As Stefan comes down to save her, she knows that she won't be lucky enough to escape this fate twice because she's not going to let him take her. Not at the cost of another life. Not after everything that has already been done in the defence of her life. 

This answer doesn't feel raw, and it's a sentence she's willing to pay. 

Before the last of the breath escapes her lungs, as her thoughts finally slow, she considers, 'I guess that's what I should get for crawling back at your feet.'


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: Damon/Alaric- _You know just how to break my armor with a single look and make wishes fall from my jaded lips_

**Shades of Grey**

Damon swallowed as his eyes took in the sight of Alaric, slumped against the mausoleum before him. They'd been through this before. They'd been through trying to kill each other--successfully, in Damon's case--at least as many times as they'd had each others' backs. Alaric had been able to see something more in Damon than the two dimensional façade of the villain he wore so well. Alaric was a human who understood that there were many shades to the colour grey. 

The vampire gave a small nod of his head. This was what it was; being a vampire was watching all the humans you made a connection with falter and fade away. That was why he'd looked for Katherine for a hundred and... too many years. He'd gotten attached to Elena for reasons other than the fact that she looked like her ancestor but, deep down, he'd always thought she would one day choose to become a vampire like him and Stefan. Even if it was the only option left open to her just because she was the damned doppelgänger.

Alaric had taken him by surprise. 

And when Alaric looked up at him, and Damon crouched down to sit beside him, Damon vowed that Alaric's last moments on this earth would be spent with someone who loved him as much as Damon did.

*

As much as he was losing the fight with the Originally-juiced Alaric, a part of Damon couldn't help but think this was a good way to go out. Fighting, to the last moment, with Alaric. It didn't matter how small a part of Alaric was actually in there. Damon didn't care about that. He'd been a vampire more than long enough to know that shades of grey were just that--grey. What was important was that that part of Alaric would be here with Damon when Damon fell.

Elena couldn't be here, but Alaric was.

And that was why it hit him so hard when Alaric faltered. Again. And then a third time. Damon's eyes opened wide, and he held Alaric up with more difficulty than he might have had he not spent the last several minutes being beaten up by the same man. 

"Oh no," he murmured. Then, with more heat, "No, no no. Ric. Ric!"

Because it wasn't enough that he just lost one of them. The universe had never been so kind to him. This was like losing Stefan and Katherine all over again. His best friend, and his beloved.

Damon stared off into a distance only he could see long after the last fading spasms had passed and Alaric's body had gone still. That distance was showing him so many of the ways Elena might have died. A thought wormed its way into his head before he could stop it, wondering whether this was how Elena had felt in the time she had thought Damon was going to die of a werewolf bite.

"You are not dead," he whispered, deliberately not looking at the grey hue of Alaric's features that meant exactly that. So many shades of grey.

Elena was to be expected. That was history repeating itself almost exactly. He hadn't expected Alaric. Alaric had taken him by surprise.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: Damon/Elena - _"I dare you to ever forget me. I dare you."_

**Dare**

Some of the first things that come back to Elena after she wakes up from that mortuary slab are the moments Damon compelled her to forget. 

_"I just have to say it once. You just need to here it. I love you, Elena. And it's because I love you that I can't be selfish with you."_

He wore that expression, very similar to the one he's wearing when she opens her eyes for the first time, and her gaze rests on him, not Stefan. Alive. They are both alive.

She had said to him, "Maybe things would have been different if I met you first," and she remembers that, too. Meeting him first. Thinking it weird and slightly dangerous that he was standing out there in the middle of nowhere to talk to her while she was alone and waiting for her parents to pick her up. A part of her had thrilled with excitement at the sight of him and the conversation that had followed. It was the same thrill that had picked up her heart beat when she'd seen Stefan gazing at her in class on those first days of school. They both had that something in their eyes when they looked at her.

They don't have that anymore. Now, those looks of longing for Katherine have passed, replaced by the actuality of this young girl that they have come to know. Young girl.... not any longer, she thinks, knowing in a moment of lucidity just what it means to remember those compelled memories. 

Most of all, she realises she was wrong. It's not about who she met first. That was some stupid and childish excuse made up to fit with in with the life of the lost young woman who was trying to find her way. 

With an effort, she pulls her gaze away from Damon, and looks to Stefan. He appears horrified. Elena lowers her eyelashes. She can't help the pang of judgement that slices through her, causing her to think that he could have at least attempted to school his expression before she looked at him. How long had she been staring at Damon? But then, maybe that's the reason why he looks horrified.

The memory of Stefan's face stays in her mind despite the fact she's looked away. He looks like a wounded puppy while Damon... Elena's eyes creep up again to look at Damon as though it's this taboo thing. And maybe it is. Damon stares at her enquiringly, his gaze as intense as it has ever looked as he looks into her as if to find out what she is thinking. Elena finds out that she can't forget him. Any part of him. And she's not strong enough to fight against her desire for him in her new vampire form. Passions are even closer to the surface for vampires than they are for humans. Elena feels like she has had a long time to take in and come to understand that lesson.

She thinks that she is in for an enjoyable interim, while she learns to fight those base character urges. And she doesn't think she'll be upset if she never gets it completely right.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: Stefan/Caroline - _Cannot pretend that I felt any regret, cause each broken heart will eventually mend, as the blood runs red down the needle and thread, someday you will be loved._

**For Tyler.**

This was the first time that Stefan had visited Caroline since Elena had left the morgue. Left with his brother.

He hadn't come to Caroline as a second choice. He just... hadn't known where else to go. 

With Caroline, he hadn't known much about her before Katherine turned her into a vampire. Hadn't known that she didn't want to become a vampire. Hadn't known how strong a woman she would become once that strength ran through her. He leaned on her, on her strength, and her sense of loyalty. It had started out that he had shown her the path to being a responsible blood drinker but, more and more over time, Caroline had shown him what it was like to be a responsible vampire. 

Liz Forbes had opened the door to him. "Come in," she said quietly. Her eyes did a cursive sweep of the street behind him, and she hurriedly closed the door as soon as he was inside. "I'm glad you're here. She needs someone to talk to. Someone to..." Liz shook her head, obviously at a loss as to how to deal with this situation. "She needs to get out of town. Alaric may be dead, but the shake up he applied to the Council isn't just gone."

Neither one of them mentioned the other deaths that had fallen to Mystic Falls of late.

Stefan nodded his head just one time. He'd already noticed a certain amount of red rimming the Sheriff's eyes. Slowly, making sure to cause enough noise that he didn't startle her, Stefan approaches Caroline's bedroom.

She hadn't started crying when he had come to her door. From the shakiness of her body, the blotchiness of her face and the way her hair had that look that meant hands gripping it and running through it repetitively, Stefan knew she'd been crying for some time.

As soon as she looked up to see him standing in her doorway, she collapsed into further tears. Moving quickly in the house for the first time, Stefan crossed the room and took her into his arms. 

She was shaking her head, making muffled sounds into the sleeve of Stefan's jacket until he moved his arm slightly so he could hear her.

"I... I can't..." Caroline shook her head. "How can I?"

"Caroline..." Stefan didn't know how to approach this, not without sounding callous. His ears picked up on Liz's footsteps coming to her daughter's door. Though he didn't look behind him to confirm what his ears picked up, he held more tightly onto Caroline as she shook. "Caroline. You're strong. You're going to get past this. But, right now? We have to go. We have to get out of Mystic Falls."

"And go where?" Caroline asked him, seeming to almost pull it together for a moment. Then she looked past him, at the shattered expression on her mother's face, and her face crumpled once more. "He was meant to be going with me. Tyler..." Her grief made the name sound like a wail.

"Caroline." This time Stefan had to hold her firmly by the shoulders and look deep into her eyes to catch and then keep her attention. He shifted so that she couldn't easily see her mother over his shoulder. "I promise, someday, you will be loved in the way that you deserve. But for now, you need to stay smart to stay alive. For Tyler," he added.

Some clarity returned into Caroline's eyes. She pursed her lips, but her gaze stayed steadily on Stefan's this time. "For Tyler," she reiterated. Then she averted her eyes. "My bags are already packed. Let's go."


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: Stefan/Elena/Damon - _"Make me believe in love again."_

**In the end, she does the least Katherine-like thing she can imagine.**

Her life has become Katherine's life. She has the looks, the boys, and now she will live like them forever. But she doesn't leave them. She doesn't even choose one of them over the other. These games didn't interest her when she was a human girl, and they don't especially call to her after she becomes a vampire. 

It's difficult at first, of course. Stefan and Damon have grown used to being wary with each other. And with women who look like Elena does. She doesn't make any sudden moves, instead observing that treating them like easily startled wild creatures may be the best way to handle them. 

She tells them she has no intention of choosing between them, of using them as pawns in some convoluted game, and then she leaves them to mull that fact over.

When they come back to her again, she is upfront with them.

"No secrets," she tells them. "No lies." 

They both nod, and agree, but Elena can tell that neither one of them understand what she is offering to them. Before the first day has passed, Damon comes up to her and tries to tempt her into a secret tryst. 

"Why do you think I'd want a secret tryst with you?" she asks, seeing the bitterness rise up in his eyes. His jaw sticks out mulishly, and she says, "Do you think that I'm ashamed of you?"

Stefan sits and talks with her, tries to entice her into hours long conversations between just the two of them. He tries to stall her when she gets up to ask if Damon wants to join them, but Elena has none of that.

"He's your older brother, Stefan. What is there about you that he doesn't already know?"

When both brothers realise that none of their collective bags of tricks are going to sway her in either one of their directions, they are forced to entertain the possibility that maybe, just maybe, she may not be willing to choose either one of them above the other. 

That is when things really begin to come good between them. Elena learns things about her boys that she never would have in Mystic Falls. Like, they both like live shows on Broadway. Elena has never been to the Broadway before, so it's an experience that both brothers can share with her for the first time. As well, Elena gets to see these two Salvatore brothers in a way that she doubts Katherine ever did. Their expressions as they watch the performance unfold before them is what makes the night so memorable for Elena. 

Gradually, Stefan and Damon begin to grow comfortable around each other, without their constant competition for the woman between them's desires and attentions. They start to play practical jokes on each other, jokes that end in laughs and invitations for _Elena_ to join _them_ if the noise they're making hasn't already been enough to draw her to them. Jibes are rare and, one time, Elena even sees Damon make an apology for going too far. 

Stefan seems surprised, then, "No," he says. "That's okay."

Damon's warm expression is aglow in a way that's reminiscent of a child who's had negative reinforcement for so long that he can hardly believe he's gotten positive reinforcement again. Elena slips up behind him, grasps his hand for a moment before letting go. She is rewarded with a smile that has none of the bitterness of the Damon she grew to love despite herself. 

Elena fancies that this is what Damon was like before he was a vampire. 

Ironically, it is Stefan's insecurities that take longer to overcome than Damon's. His own sense that he's not worth the love he's offered persists far more strongly than any external judgement Damon received over the years. Damon knew he deserved love; it was only the rest of the world that was slow on the uptake. Having gained that love, Damon is a wealth of strength and conviction for the little brother who so thoroughly doted on him once upon a time. 

Finally, finally, Stefan comes to believe that he will never become that Ripper again, that Elena and Damon simply won't let him go of him for long enough for him to fall so far.

She walks into a conversation that she had no way of expecting on one warm summer evening, just after the sun has set. Both brothers look up at her and their conversation halts abruptly. She offers them both a small, game smile, hoping that they're just going to tell her what she walked in on because now she's really dying to know.

When Stefan stands up and offers her his hand, Elena is confused for a moment, looking between both boys as though there is an answer somewhere in their body language that she's just not reading. 

Damon is smiling his crooked smile, and it's he who says the first words. "It's okay, Elena. We can do this." He is all sincerity. Elena has long since forgotten what it once was like to second guess everything he said.

Again, Elena looks to Stefan's open hand, waiting for hers. She looks into his eyes. Desire, yes, but more there is warmth and love. They've had their teenage romance and honeymoon period already. It doesn't consume them this time. 

Elena gasps her pleasure under Stefan's lips, fingers and tongue. 

The next night when Damon takes her out on a date, Stefan wishes them a good time and advertises the fact that he'll be out when they get back. 

In the end, Elena does the least Katherine-like thing with the Salvatore brothers that she can imagine. She loves them both, with all her heart and soul.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: Caroline/Klaus _  
> Oh my, you’re driving me crazy  
>  Don’t know why I want you baby  
> My eyes are bigger than my mouth but maybe  
> I could learn to be your lady  
> _

**Yours**

She thinks about him. More than she wants to. More than she ever admits. 

It feels like a betrayal of Tyler at first.

As the years go by, it just feels like a betrayal. She remembers some things about Tyler: his dark hair, perfect white teethed smile, the fact that he had really nice abs. But specifics become hard to place. Like the sound of his voice. The particular look in his eyes before he would say, "Caroline," in _that_ tone of voice. 

There were things that were hard to hold onto, and Caroline came to appreciate that 'forever' was going to be a long time.

She started it by actively avoiding the places Klaus said he would take her after everything was done in Mystic Falls. Well, everything was done. Had been for years. And he was dead. 

At first, she actively avoided the places Klaus said he would take her because it felt like a betrayal of Tyler.

As the years go by, she avoids them because he isn't there to take her to see them.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: Elena, _i'm beyond repair, let me be, and give me back my broken parts_

**As these stories do...**

This girl, she goes home with Stefan. Stefan holds her like she is glass that's about to break, instead of a vampire whose strength towers over the girl she used to be. He asks her if she's okay about one hundred times, but that's okay because she can answer that she is one hundred and one times. Maybe she didn't want this to begin with, but they are equals now. She will not grow old and die while he stays young and gorgeous together. 

This is the happily ever after that she wished for when she was young and naive. 

*

This girl, she goes home with Damon. Damon's eyes are lit with untold potential, potential of her own body now that he can't wait to share with her. But he takes it slow, because he loves her and, now that she remembers everything between them, she is more sure than any time before that he will give her anything she wants. Maybe she didn't want this to begin with, but they are equals now. She will not judge his actions and find him wanting because she will be able understand him better now. 

This is the happily ever after he knew she wished for before she knew about death and dying and before she knew there were things that were so much worse than either.

*

This girl, she goes back to her house and halts Stefan and Damon on the porch with a look. Her hand stays on the wood of the front door, lest she need to close it quickly; close them out of her life for good.

"I know you both helped me handle the first couple of weeks of transition," she says. "And I'm thankful. But I really need to figure out what's left of me now that I'm... I need you to let me be." Need them both to give back the broken parts of herself. 

She closes the door, then, on their dear and desperate faces. 

Jeremy is standing behind her. He knows better than to talk to her right now. His eyes say that he is ready to listen to anything she wants to say as soon as she is ready. His arms say she still has place to cry even now that Alaric--the last of their adult guardians--is dead as well. She doesn't have to be the adult yet.

She nods at him briefly, but her eyes fill with tears a moment before she can turn away and hide it. Years of habit have her choking them back before it consumes her, but the thoughts remain.

This was the story of two brothers who found a broken girl and thought to bring her into their hearts, never thinking what such a thing would do to her. It ends in tragedy, as these stories do, and she wonders whether the Stefan and Damon even understand why she's made this decision to cut them out of her life, or whether they are right now in the boarding house, scratching their heads while they down their scotch. 

"I'm going to go to bed now, Jer," she says, laying a hand gently on his arm, but not really seeing him. 

She lies awake in bed until the first rays of sunlight start to peak around her closed curtains. Everything has changed and, in her deepest of hearts, Elena truly believes that she is broken beyond repair.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: Klaus/Caroline or Kol/Caroline or both   
> _I can be your china doll,  
>  if you'd like to see me fall_

**Master of Misdirection**

Klaus is a master of misdirection. Caroline supposes that must be what happens when your father is a werewolf and your mother is the Original Witch who also just happened to put the vampire curse on top of your werewolf bloodline. 

When Caroline sees a blonde man with just that certain amount of stubble on his cheeks and chin standing in a crowd, she does a double take. But by the time she does that, he's already gone and Caroline is left to wonder if her mind is causing her to imagine things. 

The next time it happens, its a whisper by her ear in that accent and tone of voice that has never quite left her memory. Or maybe she thought it did, but is proven wrong as soon as it comes back. 

Caroline almost weeps in frustration when she looks behind her but can see only two other people talking to one another on a Parisian Street.

Maybe it's because she's finally come here, to one of the places he said he'd show her. Maybe it's because there's no one else left and she so desperately doesn't want to be alone anymore. 

Most of all, she tries to convince herself that she's not going crazy.

She keeps herself busy after that, convinces herself that she's drinking more blood just to make sure it's not malnourishment that's making her see and hear things. She always tries to keep on this side of becoming a Ripper like Stefan but the problem about drinking more blood is that you always want to drink more blood. 

When Klaus finally makes himself known properly to her again, Caroline's all but done most of the work for him.

"I told you that Paris would be your city, love."

Caroline spins around fast, no longer caring who sees the too swift to be human movement, only caring that if she doesn't turn around fast enough, Klaus might not be there anymore. But he is there. His eyes watch her in a way that can only been termed 'hungrily' and Caroline steps into his arms and allows herself to be devoured.

This time, there is no Elena, no Salvatore brothers, no Tyler, and no Mystic Falls to keep her ethics in charge. Once upon a time, she would never have consented to being his china doll but she's been lonely for a long time and she'd sort of like to see where this one leads.

*

It leads them halfway across the European continent. Klaus shows her everything he ever promised he would, and Caroline loves every minute of it, as he also promised. As well as this, he draws her into the depths of depravity, to places Stefan would have paused before at his most Ripper. With Klaus as her yard stick, there is no end to the depths she can fall. But, at the end of it, there is always Klaus. He never tires of her, or tries to make her any different. 

"You are perfect, just as you are, love."

He draws pictures of her, at her best, at her worst, in almost every town and city. He makes a scrapbook out of them, and tells Caroline that when she too has lived to one thousand years old, she will appreciate these little mementos of the time that has passed in between. When Caroline asks why he never draws images of himself with her, he tells her that after she has passed one thousand years old, she will understand that life is only as interesting as the younger boy or girl she brings into this world. 

"But you didn't bring me into this world," she tells him. 

Klaus smiles that enigmatic smile that first captured her interest even when she was trying to fight against him. "Just in all the ways that matter," he says, and gives her his 'just trust me' nod. 

Klaus is a master of misdirection. When he gets tired of the bloodshed every other night and wishes for a different kind of interesting to while away the next decade, Caroline finds she doesn't miss the blood as much as she thinks she will. Klaus doesn't give her time to. Caroline is his china doll, and she even loves him for it.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: Katherine and Elena go on a road trip. Katherine is the best Yoda ever.

**Yoda.**

She spends hours, after she returns as a vampire, looking into the mirror reflection of herself. Her movements are sharper now, somehow. Every tilt of her head produces a narrowing of her eyes; every narrowing of her eyes produces a small curve of her lips, and that in turn betrays tiny pointed teeth. 

She's magnificent whenever she hunts. Damon tells her so, even if Stefan refuses to. Damon takes her out of Mystic Falls because they have the Council and too many 'animal attacks' already in recent memory. Other towns have shorter memories, or perhaps a smaller number of tragedies. 

She likes to sit still just to see how long she can do it. No heart beat, no pulse, no need for the rhythmic in and out beating of her heart. The longest she manages is 24 minutes without moving a single piece of her body. Then Jeremy comes back, and the scent of the unfamiliar girl he's brought back with him from the Grill is enough to send Elena into a frenzy.

The girl from the Grill doesn't come back to the Gilbert residence again, and she leaves there minus some particular memories. Compulsion is one of the first skills that Elena really takes to. 

"I have this feeling she's going to need it," Damon said ironically to Stefan once. Stefan had looked into his glass of scotch. 

The ability to Compel people just makes Elena feel more like the vampire she so resembles. Katherine was always in control, always fucking with someone's head in that way that was specifically _Katherine_. Nobody--not even the Original siblings--fucked with heads like Katherine. She had convinced almost everyone in Mystic Falls that she was Elena at some time or other. Maybe this was Katherine's best trick yet; she was really pretending to be Elena being a vampire.

Once the thought enters her head, it's impossible to get rid of. Elena spends an afternoon in her bathroom curling her hair just to see what it will look like. The demonstration doesn't do much for the stability in her mind. When Caroline calls up the stairs for her from the front door, Elena wets her hair and pretends to come straight from the shower. No point in giving away the trick!

She starts walking with an exaggerated swagger to her hips, a dipping her chin before looking up at the Salvatore brothers with sultry eyes. Never when the other one is watching, of course. That would ruin the game. It's a game that's 150 years old, but Elena picks it up with such ease. She enjoys watching while it drives them crazy. All the way up till that night when Damon grabs both of her arms, narrows his eyes and really looks into her. 

"What are you trying for here?" he demands of her but, even after close inspection, Damon doesn't suspect anything more awry than Post Transition Stress. 

That's almost enough to convince Elena that she might not be Katherine after all. But, by now, the trick is so much ingrained in her that she instead congratulates herself on managing to fool even Damon for this long. 

Really, it isn't until a car drives up beside her with Katherine at the wheel that Elena believes she might have been wrong in the belief she's holding onto. 

"Get in." Katherine's voice is terse and unfriendly. 

Elena is still trying to get over the shock of seeing herself in front of herself. 

Katherine sighs impatiently, reaches over and pushes open the passenger door so Elena has no easy way of getting around this invitation. "I said, get in," she repeats and this time Elena does.

They drive for several miles before either one of them says anything. 

Eventually, it's Katherine who says, "So, enjoying my life, are you?"

The older vampire doesn't take her eyes off the road as she says it. Elena glances at her, before deciding that her way is better. Much easier to have this conversation if it doesn't involve actually _looking_ at each other.

She shrugs a shoulder and does her best imitation of Katherine's nonchalant face. It's a pretty good impression.

"You weren't using it."

Another long silence. Elena may have Katherine's looks, but she doesn't have her patience. Eventually, she looks to the side to see how Katherine's taking this flippant remark. There's an expression on Katherine's features that's close to when she told Elena it was okay to love both brothers. How long ago that seems now. 

"You don't want it." Of this, Katherine sounds certain. Elena is surprised. How could Katherine, who always seemed so in control of anything, be less than happy with how any of it has turned out? As though she can feel Elena's doubt radiating off her, Katherine continues, "You saw how fun it was with Klaus. You think that's the only vampire I've pissed off in the last 400 years? Or witch, for that matter? I've lost the only two people I ever loved." Finally, she flickers her gaze from the road to Elena. "Or maybe I should let you have my life after all." Her eyes shift back to the road, take on a sort of dreamy look. "Take all the baggage I've accrued. Pretend to be me. At least you have Stefan and Damon see you through it."

Elena shifts in her seat. Does she anymore, she wonders? She can't even remember the last time Stefan properly looked at her. Even Damon, who she knew she impressed with her lust for blood at the start, seems more tired with her lately, like she is a chore that's more trouble than he bargained on to begin with. Elena doesn't know for sure that they're not celebrating her temporary absence from Mystic Falls, or if they've even noticed yet she's gone.

"Ah..." Katherine looks as though she's read all of these expressions on Elena's features. She doesn't sound particularly surprised when she says, "Not working out the way you expected?" She starts to pull the car over. The indicator light flashes on and off on the dashboard, before Katherine looks at Elena again. "Take a lesson from me. I've lived a long time to learn it. Don't let yourself lose them. You'll regret it forever if you do."

Needless to say how long forever was for one of their kind. 

"This is your stop," Katherine says then.

Elena's eyebrows shoot up into her hair. Taking a quick look around them, she sees that there is nothing around them other than the road extending out in both directions and overgrown grass and trees on either side of the road. 

"What? You take me on a drive but you won't drive me home?"

"We're not _friends_ , Elena." Indeed, how could they be friends? They were two people sharing one life in between them. "You're a resourceful young vampire. I'm sure you can figure out how to get home again."


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: Elijah/vamp Elena/Klaus or Damon/vamp Elena/Stefan- _You say you want to know her like a lover  
>  And undo her damage, she'll be new again  
> Soon you'll find that if you try to save her  
> It will renews her anger  
> You will never win_

**The Petrova Curse.**

Elena thinks that the reason Elijah takes her in is to have a new attempt at undoing the old damage he had done to a Petrova doppelgänger long before Elena had ever been born.

Since Elijah's name does not end with 'Salvatore', Elena will take whatever hand outs he gives her. They even become friends, she thinks, far better positioned to do so than when Elijah was an Original and Elena was naught but a human girl. Best of all, he doesn't try to save her. Perhaps he knows without testing it the kind of wrath that would bring. After all, unlike Damon and Stefan, Elijah did know Katherine both before and after she was a vampire.

Then Klaus comes back. He always comes back. Even Elijah doesn't seem particularly surprised to see it; doesn't ask how his brother has managed it this time. The surprise is all Klaus' when he sees the dinner partner Elijah already has sitting at the table when he invites Klaus to stay. 

Elena eyes Klaus, that old foe, wondering what he will do to her now that he is in front of her again. He only ever protected her to protect her blood. When he own life was in danger, he threw her over for just her blood. In the moment when Klaus' gaze bores into Elena's, she half expects him to jump across the table and kill her there and then. 

Or torture her. Isn't that what he did when he found Katherine again?

But no. Klaus sits to his brother's table and the three of them share a civilised meal. Or what probably passes as civilised for Klaus who of course asks about the Salvatore brothers, remarks on how strange it is that they are not present with her, asks after Jenna, Jules, Tyler and Alaric. And Caroline. 

Elijah tells Klaus to shut up and enjoy the meal. Elena has never asked why it is they sit to eat a meal that offers no nutritional input for their bodies, but they do so every night. Apparently even the oldest vampires have habits. Klaus must have seen it before, for he doesn't remark on it. 

"He won't stay long," Elijah assures her. "He never stays in one place for long."

"How about Mystic Falls?" Elena replies. It seemed he stayed a long time then.

Elijah looks at her for a moment, but looks away without saying anything. It doesn't matter; the message gets across anyway. 6 or 12 months is nothing to anyone of their age. 

Elijah has learned to smile again. In Elena's company, he has learned to laugh again. In Klaus' company, all of that disappears, and Elena feels the loss of that like the absence of heat in winter. She'd say something to Klaus about it, except that then it would become just another of those _things_ , something for him to pick up, bring up incessantly, and never let go of. 

"You are learning, finally, how to handle my brother," Elijah told her once. In his voice was a hint amusement.

"I don't find him funny at all," Elena said sharply in reply.

"I heard that," came Klaus' voice from not too far east, but well out of sight. 

The first time Elena shares Elijah's bed, it's like all the warmth of summer has returned. It's a different kind of love to what she shared with Damon, and Stefan, and even Matt before that. That's a big part of why she does it. She thinks this is what it's like to be involved with someone as an adult, where your hormones and the epic-ness of being 17 and 18 years old--or the overwhelming changes that transition brings--don't throw all things out of proportion until all you have is an epic mess.

Of course, Klaus is sitting there across the table, grinning at them broadly the following night.

Three nights like that, and Elijah finally breaks and says, "Oh go on, say it."

Klaus cuts up a big piece of seared steak and says, "Say what?" with a big old plum in his mouth, before replacing it with the mouthful of steak. 

Elena does her best to ignore him, but he doesn't make it easy. She wonders if it bothers Elijah that Klaus is always staring at her all the time. It's not something they talk about. Klaus and Elijah have had an extra 800 years to find out if talking works, after all.

As time goes on, and Klaus lingers with them, Elena wonders if this is how it's always going to be. If she is always going to be between two brothers.

If this, too, is part of the Petrova curse.


End file.
